Develop Reference

How to read and write to a file (Javascript) in ui automation?

I want to identify few properties during my run and form a json object which I would like to write to a ".json"file and save it on the disk.
var target = UIATarget.localTarget();
var properties = new Object();
var jsonObjectToRecord = {"properties":properties}
jsonObjectToRecord.properties.name = "My App"
UIALogger.logMessage("Pretty Print TEST Log"+jsonObjectToRecord.properties.name);
var str = JSON.stringify(jsonObjectToRecord)
UIALogger.logMessage(str);
// -- CODE TO WRITE THIS JSON TO A FILE AND SAVE ON THE DISK --
I tried :
// Sample code to see if it is possible to write data
// onto some file from my automation script
function WriteToFile()
{
set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject");
set s = fso.CreateTextFile("/Volumes/DEV/test.txt", True);
s.writeline("HI");
s.writeline("Bye");
s.writeline("-----------------------------");
s.Close();
}
AND
function WriteFile()
{
// Create an instance of StreamWriter to write text to a file.
sw = new StreamWriter("TestFile.txt");
// Add some text to the file.
sw.Write("This is the ");
sw.WriteLine("header for the file.");
sw.WriteLine("-------------------");
// Arbitrary objects can also be written to the file.
sw.Write("The date is: ");
sw.WriteLine(DateTime.Now);
sw.Close();
}
But still unable to read and write data to file from ui automation instruments
Possible Workaround ??
To redirect to the stdout if we can execute a terminal command from my ui automation script. So can we execute a terminal command from the script ?
Haven't Tried :
1. Assuming we can include the library that have those methods and give it a try .

Your assumptions are good, But the XCode UI Automation script is not a full JavaScript.
I don't think you can simply program a normal browser based JavaScript in the XCode UI Automation script.
set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject");
Is not a JavaScript, it is VBScript which will only work in Microsoft Platforms and testing tools like QTP.
Scripting.FileSystemObject
Is an ActiveX object which only exists in Microsoft Windows
Only few JavaScript functions like basic Math, Array,...etc..Are provided by the Apple JavaScript library, so you are limited to use only the classes provided here https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/DeveloperTools/Reference/UIAutomationRef/
If you want to do more scripting then Try Selenium IOS Driver http://ios-driver.github.io/ios-driver/

Hey so this is something that I was looking into for a project but never fully got around to implementing so this answer will be more of a guide of what to do than step by step copy and paste.
First you're going to need to create a bash script that writes to a file. This can be as simple as
!/bin/bash
echo $1 >> ${filename.json}
Then you call this from inside your Xcode Instruments UIAutomation tool with
var target = UIATarget.localTarget();
var host = target.host();
var result = host.performTaskWithPathArgumentsTimeout("your/script/path", ["Object description in JSON format"], 5);
Then after your automation ends you can load up the file path on your computer to look at the results.
EDIT: This will enable to write to a file line by line but the actual JSON formatting will be up to you. Looking at some examples I don't think it would be difficult to implement but obviously you'll need to give it some thought at first.

Auto Save a file in Firefox

I am trying to find a way where by we can auto save a file in Firefox using JS. The way I have done till yet using FireShot on a Windows Desktop:
var element = content.document.createElement("FireShotDataElement");
element.setAttribute("Entire", EntirePage);
element.setAttribute("Action", Action);
element.setAttribute("Key", Key);
element.setAttribute("BASE64Content", "");
element.setAttribute("Data", Data);
element.setAttribute("Document", content.document);
if (typeof(CapturedFrameId) != "undefined")
element.setAttribute("CapturedFrameId", CapturedFrameId);
content.document.documentElement.appendChild(element);
var evt = content.document.createEvent("Events");
evt.initEvent("capturePageEvt", true, false);
element.dispatchEvent(evt);
But the issue is that it opens a dialog box to confirm the local drive location details. Is there a way I can hard code the local drive storage location and auto save the file?

If you are creating a Firefox add-on then FileUtils and NetUtil.asyncCopy are your friends:
Components.utils.import("resource://gre/modules/FileUtils.jsm");
Components.utils.import("resource://gre/modules/NetUtil.jsm");
var TEST_DATA = "this is a test string";
var source = Components.classes["#mozilla.org/io/string-input-stream;1"].
createInstance(Components.interfaces.nsIStringInputStream);
source.setData(TEST_DATA, TEST_DATA.length);
var file = new FileUtils.File("c:\\foo\\bar.txt");
var sink = file.openSafeFileOutputStream(file, FileUtils.MODE_WRONLY |
FileUtils.MODE_CREATE);
NetUtil.asyncCopy(source, sink);
This will asynchronously write the string this is a test string into the file c:\foo\bar.txt. Note that NetUtil.asyncCopy closes both streams automatically, you don't need to do it. However, you might want to pass a function as third parameter to this method - it will be called when the write operation is finished.
See also: Code snippets, writing to a file

Every computer has a different file structure. But still, there is a way. You can save it to cookie / session, depends on how "permanent" your data wants to be.
Do not consider writing a physical file as it requires extra permission.

How can you read a file line by line in JavaScript?

I'm writing a web-app for the iPad that will be loading data from a text file. (A sample data set is around ~400 kb). I have everything set up except the file reading. The way I have set up my code, you pass an object which reads a file line by line.
How can I read a file line by line?
If there is no direct way to read a file line by line, can someone please show me an example of how to read a file into a string object? (so that I can use the split method :P)

This could work, if I understood what you want to do:
var txtFile = new XMLHttpRequest();
txtFile.open("GET", "http://website.com/file.txt", true);
txtFile.onreadystatechange = function()
{
if (txtFile.readyState === 4) { // document is ready to parse.
if (txtFile.status === 200) { // file is found
allText = txtFile.responseText;
lines = txtFile.responseText.split("\n");
}
}
}
txtFile.send(null);

Mobile Safari doesn't have the File API, so I assume you're talking about reading from a web resource. You can't do that. When you read a resource via ajax, the browser will first read it fully into memory and then pass the entire string to your ajax callback as a string.
In your callback, you can take the string and break it into lines, and wrap that up in an object that has the API that your code wants, but you're still going to have the string in memory all at once..

With jQuery:
myObject = {}; //myObject[numberline] = "textEachLine";
$.get('path/myFile.txt', function(myContentFile) {
var lines = myContentFile.split("\r\n");
for(var i in lines){
//here your code
//each line is "lines[i]"
//save in object "myObject":
myObject[i] = lines[i]
//print in console
console.log("line " + i + " :" + lines[i]);
}
}, 'text');

i dont think thats possible until you use ajax to hit some server side code.

Mozilla (Firefox, Thunderbird) Extension: How to get extension id (from install.rdf)?

If you are developing an extension for one of the mozilla applications (e.g. Firefox, Thunderbird, etc.) you define a extension id in the install.rdf.
If for some reason you need to know the extension id e.g. to retrieve the extension dir in local file system (1) or if you want to send it to a webservice (useage statistic) etc. it would be nice to get it from the install.rdf in favour to have it hardcoded in your javascript code.
But how to access the extension id from within my extension?
1) example code:
var extId = "myspecialthunderbirdextid#mydomain.com";
var filename = "install.rdf";
var file = extManager.getInstallLocation(extId).getItemFile(extId, filename);
var fullPathToFile = file.path;

I'm fairly sure the 'hard-coded ID' should never change throughout the lifetime of an extension. That's the entire purpose of the ID: it's unique to that extension, permanently. Just store it as a constant and use that constant in your libraries. There's nothing wrong with that.
What IS bad practice is using the install.rdf, which exists for the sole purpose of... well, installing. Once the extension is developed, the install.rdf file's state is irrelevant and could well be inconsistent.
"An Install Manifest is the file an Add-on Manager-enabled XUL application uses to determine information about an add-on as it is being installed" [1]
To give it an analogy, it's like accessing the memory of a deleted object from an overflow. That object still exists in memory but it's not logically longer relevant and using its data is a really, really bad idea.
[1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en/install_manifests

Like lwburk, I don't think its available through Mozilla's API's, but I have an idea which works, but it seems like a complex hack. The basic steps are:
Set up a custom resource url to point to your extension's base directory
Read the file and parse it into XML
Pull the id out using XPath
Add the following line to your chrome.manifest file
resource packagename-base-dir chrome/../
Then we can grab and parse the file with the following code:
function myId(){
var req = new XMLHttpRequest();
// synchronous request
req.open('GET', "resource://packagename-base-dir/install.rdf", false);
req.send(null);
if( req.status !== 0){
throw("file not found");
}
var data = req.responseText;
// this is so that we can query xpath with namespaces
var nsResolver = function(prefix){
var ns = {
"rdf" : "http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#",
"em" : "http://www.mozilla.org/2004/em-rdf#"
};
return ns[prefix] || null;
};
var parser = CCIN("#mozilla.org/xmlextras/domparser;1", Ci.nsIDOMParser);
var doc = parser.parseFromString(data, "text/xml");
// you might have to change this xpath expression a bit to fit your setup
var myExtId = doc.evaluate("//em:targetApplication//em:id", doc, nsResolver,
Ci.nsIDOMXPathResult.FIRST_ORDERED_NODE_TYPE, null);
return myExtId.singleNodeValue.textContent;
}
I chose to use a XMLHttpRequest(as opposed to simply reading from a file) to retrieve the contents since in Firefox 4, extensions aren't necessarily unzipped. However, XMLHttpRequest will still work if the extension remains packed (haven't tested this, but have read about it).
Please note that resource URL's are shared by all installed extensions, so if packagename-base-dir isn't unique, you'll run into problems. You might be able to leverage Programmatically adding aliases to solve this problem.
This question prompted me to join StackOverflow tonight, and I'm looking forward participating more... I'll be seeing you guys around!

As Firefox now just uses Chrome's WebExtension API, you can use #serg's answer at How to get my extension's id from JavaScript?:
You can get it like this (no extra permissions required) in two
different ways:
Using runtime api: var myid = chrome.runtime.id;
Using i18n api: var myid = chrome.i18n.getMessage("##extension_id");

I can't prove a negative, but I've done some research and I don't think this is possible. Evidence:
This question, which shows that
the nsIExtensionManager interface
expects you to retrieve extension
information by ID
The full nsIExtensionManager interface
description, which shows no
method that helps
The interface does allow you to retrieve a full list of installed extensions, so it's possible to retrieve information about your extension using something other than the ID. See this code, for example:
var em = Cc['#mozilla.org/extensions/manager;1']
.getService(Ci.nsIExtensionManager);
const nsIUpdateItem = Ci.nsIUpdateItem;
var extension_type = nsIUpdateItem.TYPE_EXTENSION;
items = em.getItemList(extension_type, {});
items.forEach(function(item, index, array) {
alert(item.name + " / " + item.id + " version: " + item.version);
});
But you'd still be relying on hardcoded properties, of which the ID is the only one guaranteed to be unique.

Take a look on this add-on, maybe its author could help you, or yourself can figure out:
[Extension Manager] Extended is very
simple to use. After installing, just
open the extension manager by going to
Tools and the clicking Extensions. You
will now see next to each extension
the id of that extension.
(Not compatible yet with Firefox 4.0)
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/2195

WIX: Where and how should my CustomAction create and read a temporary file?

I have a script CustomAction (Yes, I know all about the opinions that say don't use script CustomActions. I have a different opinion.)
I'd like to run a command, and capture the output. I can do this using the WScript.Shell COM object, then invoking shell.Exec(). But, this flashes a visible console window for the executed command.
To avoid that, I understand I can use the shell.Run() call, and specify "hidden" for the window appearance. But .Run() doesn't give me access to the StdOut of the executed process, so that means I'd need to create a temporary file and redirect the exe output to the temp file, then later read that temp file in script.
Some questions:
is this gonna work?
How do I generate a name for the temporary file? In .NET I could use a static method in the System.IO namespace, but I am using script here. I need to insure that the use has RW access, and also that no anti-virus program is going to puke on this.
Better ideas? I am trying very hard to avoid C/C++.
I could avoid all this if there were a way to query websites in IIS7 from script, without resorting to the IIS6 Compatibility pack, without using .NET (Microsoft.Web.Administration.ServerManager), and without execing a process (appcmd list sites).
I already asked a separate question on that topic; any suggestions on that would also be appreciated.

Answering my own question...
yes, this is going to work.
Use the Scripting.FileSystemObject thing within Javascript. There's a GetTempName() method that produces a file name suitable for temporary use, and a GetSpecialFolder() method that gets the location of the temp folder. There's even a BuildPath() method to combine them.
so far I don't have any better ideas.
Here's the code I used:
function GetWebSites_IIS7_B()
{
var ParseOneLine = function(oneLine) {
...regex parsing of output...
};
LogMessage("GetWebSites_IIS7_B() ENTER");
var shell = new ActiveXObject("WScript.Shell");
var fso = new ActiveXObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject");
var tmpdir = fso.GetSpecialFolder(SpecialFolders.TemporaryFolder);
var tmpFileName = fso.BuildPath(tmpdir, fso.GetTempName());
var windir = fso.GetSpecialFolder(SpecialFolders.WindowsFolder);
var appcmd = fso.BuildPath(windir,"system32\\inetsrv\\appcmd.exe") + " list sites";
// use cmd.exe to redirect the output
var rc = shell.Run("%comspec% /c " + appcmd + "> " + tmpFileName, WindowStyle.Hidden, true);
// WindowStyle.Hidden == 0
var ts = fso.OpenTextFile(tmpFileName, OpenMode.ForReading);
var sites = [];
// Read from the file and parse the results.
while (!ts.AtEndOfStream) {
var oneLine = ts.ReadLine();
var line = ParseOneLine(oneLine);
LogMessage(" site: " + line.name);
sites.push(line);
}
ts.Close();
fso.DeleteFile(tmpFileName);
return sites;
}